


While Spring is in the World

by WhereTheMoonShinesBright



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: But We'll Get to Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry?? Please don't take these lightly tho, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Spiraling, Unreliable Narrator, heavier on hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhereTheMoonShinesBright/pseuds/WhereTheMoonShinesBright
Summary: Sometimes Sylvain is Dimitri’s sweet, gentle, and caring lover. Sometimes, he’s made of death and snow, bitterness without remorse; Dimitri’s worst enemy.Sometimes Dimitri is the strong, empathetic savior king. Sometimes he’s a man who revels in the blood of others. A man his lover can hardly look at.In the years after the war, they’re learning to cope.-A growing collection of Dimivain vignettes[Edit: I wasn't crazy about the original title, so I've changed it.]
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. Show me What I Chose

The room is dark and smells like a church does during a funeral, because in the north people rarely, if ever, die in the middle of the summer— they don’t make it through the winter or they die when they go to war in the fall, but no one who can last another year dies during the summer— and so, since the flowers used in those overly fragrant casket bouquets have no use for the frozen and rotless dead, such smells and sights are still allowed to be beautiful to the people in the north.

Dimitri stands at the doors threshold, not wanting to stray too far in. Sylvain’s chambers are opiate, pulling him into a downward spiral that is either rest or sorrow, but never both; Not until he’s bled himself dry or gorged himself on whatever pieces of himself Sylvain is willing to give.

He doesn’t realize he’s being spoken to for a moment, two, ten; However long he’s been spoken to before Sylvain’s voice comes out of the wall, and he remembers the world is still around him, moving. He makes a noise he doesn’t know, can’t really hear even as it moves out of his mouth, and it’s another 3, 15, 40 seconds before his thoughts are running through his brain again.

“I was wondering where you’d gone off to,” Dimitri says, as if it were all so simple. As if he weren’t staving off the guilt of using Sylvain’s calm affection as a crutch, even as Sylvain’s hand presses softly to the small of his back and loops under his arm. He’s still never quite prepared for the weight and warmth of other people in this new armorless life he’s been leading.The first gesture always startles him. Years of relative solitude have made it so he is still unsure whether the hands moving towards him will disappear and turn into wary recollection, or whether they’ll make contact. Sylvain is warm against his side, and the supporting arm under and around him feels warm even through the several layers of wool they both are wearing.

“I was looking for you, actually.” Sylvain is a tactile thing. Dimitri’s learned so much since the end of the war, about the people who have been in his life but he’s never really known. Dimitri’s hand skates down the length of Sylvain’s arm, and he is walked away from the fragrant abyss of Sylvain’s room. “Come on, you don’t look too busy. Why don’t you treat me to dinner?”

“I’m not sure I’m up for that.” The thought of eating is repulsive. The place where he hears the implied wink in Sylvain’s voice is repulsive. The thought of sending away Sylvain without him, losing the grounding warmth at his side, is also repulsive.

“Come on, we’ll eat in your room. And hey, if you still don’t feel like eating, I’ll have it sent away for you.”

Dimitri is set down at the table in his childhood bedroom, because even a year after the end of the war, he can’t bring himself to move into the King’s chambers. Sylvain sits across from him, closed and dishonest, and Dimitri really can’t blame him.

It was a different story when he thought Sylvain to be the cold hearted one, constantly using and abusing other people. It had changed when he realized what exactly it was like to be pursued by others in that manner. It had changed further when Sylvain’s habits became inconsequential in comparison to his own crimes.He still, that is to say, doesn’t approve of Sylvain’s actions. Familiarity leads to a metamorphosis of resentment, but does not eliminate it altogether.

The atmosphere is peaceful. Sylvain is not talking about any particular thing; girls, boys, whatever taverns lie between Fhirdiad and Gautier. Sylvain arrives every 2 months to give a report of what is happening in the north, only because he is not yet Margrave, and Dimitri hopes Sylvain is using the visits garner the support needed to upend his father as well. He won’t talk about such things while they’re at dinner together. Dalliances are the safe thing to talk about for northern lords, and Sylvain only looks well and deeply troubled when asked to make comment on his family. It will be a few more days of Fhirdiad and Dimitri’s company before Sylvain remembers that he’s allowed to talk about books, and art, and whether the last bard he heard matches up to Dorothea’s voice. It will be a few more days before Sylvain remembers he’s allowed feelings of resentment as well.

Truthfully, Dimitri does not love every part of Sylvain. The person he is the first few days of his visits to Fhirdiad is one the king hates.

But this too, is reciprocation.

Sylvain does not love every part of him either; hates the blood-soaked, ghost-sighted Dimitri just as much as Felix does. Their relationship is based on this understanding. Sylvain does not want Dimitri to love the skirt chaser, Dimitri does not want Sylvain to love the glutted boar. They forgive each other for hating the things they can not stand to see in themselves.

And Dimitri can never really tell how his wayward lover feels, but there has been a revelation for him. That there are things, underneath the monster, worth loving. There’s something, lighter and irresponsible, that he feels around few people. Sylvain’s presence is like a silk rag to him, slowly tumbling him into a polish. And if he feels bettered by Sylvain’s presence, if he admires the steady peace— domestic and foreign— that’s been growing in the north by the work of Sylvain’s own hands, then it was only a matter of time before Dimitri grew to want attention, affection, and all the other workings of human desire that eventually grow to be love.

That is how Sylvain exists in Dimitri’s head when he is physically absent. Those thoughts and the letters that show the young margrave’s efficacy have built a paragon of a man in Dimitri’s head. That person is now who Sylvain is most of the time, and Dimitri, right now is eating dinner with an enemy instead of his lover. Sylvain’s face is stone and mirthless exultation, no more intent on attacking the plate he’s been tasked with than Dimitri has. Dimitri for his part is doing very little to hide how very distant he’s feeling, floating somewhere between his own feelings and reality. 

This has all been very much to his own benefit. That is the one fact he alights upon.

“You’re never honest with me,” Dimitri says. His voice had felt airy to him, but Sylvain sits stunned for a moment as though he’d yelled. Maybe he had. 

Sylvain blinks once at him, staring for a moment. His posture melts back into a shrug. Indifference that shreds at the frayed fabric complacency that protects Dimitri’s temperament. It’s too early in the week for this conversation, he knows. In two days he’ll have a lover who’s much more receptive to small criticisms, a lover who makes him laugh and feel light inside. Maybe that’s why he needs to have this conversation, now.

“I’m as honest as I can be,” he replies, without demurring from the blatant truth in the statement. “More honest with you than anyone else, honestly.”

The room has been adorned to be as unobtrusive as possible. For this very reason. The more incensed he feels, the more colors, smells, even the ghosting memory of taste, invades him. Everything is distracting and infuriating, and the affected calmness of Sylvain on the other side of the table from is causing his fingers to claw inward as some way to ground himself.

“Go ahead and say what you need to.”

“You hate me,” Dimitri says, like an axe cutting through the air. The meat on the table in front of them smells pungent, rancid. He’s waiting for sweet words, and reassurance. Sylvain looks tired. The curve of his mouth is neither happy, nor is it ingenuine. There’s the creeping remembrance, a sign of how much truly has changed in Dimitri when his voice comes out this time, and he realizes it’s not as angry as he’d feared. “Please, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I’m always unsure if you actually enjoy being here. I’d deluded myself into thinking you preferred it here at first, that the south was good for you. But you hate it here, and you change everything about yourself just to please me.”

“My life is pretty much yours to do with as you wish, your Majesty”

“I never asked for that.” And isn’t that the truth? How many nights had Dimitri woken from the Duscur massacre, watching it turn into what might have been the outcome of Gronder? Watched the moment where Glenn looked back at him, and watched those steel eyes melt into the flint spark of Felix’s? His step-mother’s fate replaced with Ingrid, and his father, Dedue?

“I had asked that of you once,” he concedes, the realization striking him as surely as any knife “I asked that of all of you.”

“There’s no use feeling bad about it now, Dimitri,” Sylvain says, already moving to pull Dimitri out of the haze that’s slowly overwhelming his thoughts. But it’s a lie. It’s just another lie.

Sylvain is there, crouched. The fabric of his shoulder is pressed against Dimitri’s mouth, and after a fearful handful of minutes, blinking against nothing— blinking against the faces of the dead which look at him, unfeeling— he bites into the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt, to stifle the sounds wrenched from every dull point in his body, feeling his face grow so wet he’s certain it can not just be tears. He feels certain that he will blink, and the hands wrapped around him will be revealed as an illusion.

“Sometimes, I’m afraid no one survived after all,” Dimitri speaks around the piece of fabric he’s stuck in his own mouth. His voice is getting more frantic, but he can’t stop, “That everything will be ripped away, and this, a happy ending is it? What could it be, but a selfish fantasy? What have I done to…”

Almost at once Dimitri feels his migraine returning, and it pulls him like a light house to the shore of his reality. Sylvain’s arms are overly real, forcing Dimitri to crouch uncomfortably into his embrace. He can feel each whispered word and breath move against his hair. He registers, distantly, that he’s still crying but he’s grounded by the wet feeling in the back of his throat and how difficult it is to breathe through his nose. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's ya boy, back again with the Graphic Depictions of Violence archive warnings tag. I'm so sorry I'm like this, but it's just a safety since I'm going to be talking about.... Fire Emblem related themes. Welcome to my version of whump-tober.
> 
> This was originally going to be a longer one-shot about trying to form healthy relationships with serious mental and emotional trauma, but I realized I'd basically just written an unfinished series of vignettes since they very drastically shift in tone and narrative lucidity.
> 
> I don't know how many of these there's going to be, and so far all the pre-written ones I have to edit are pretty heavy on the hurt side. I will change the rating of course if there are some nsfw, or if for any reason I write something which pushes really heavy on the graphic violence, as well as tagging the chapters with specifics.
> 
> I'm sorry if this chapter reads a little rough, the narration should be more lucid for most of the other pieces.
> 
> Thanks for reading and you can always find me at  
> @chinupking on twitter
> 
> I'm also always looking for more people to talk to FE about so please, please message me


	2. for life's not a paragraph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Slight reference to unhealthy sexual coping mechanisms, mention of graphic violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'since feeling is first  
> who pays any attention  
> to the syntax of things  
> will never wholly kiss you;
> 
> wholly to be a fool  
> while Spring is in the world
> 
> my blood approves,  
> and kisses are a better fate  
> than wisdom  
> lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry  
> – the best gesture of my brain is less than  
> your eyelids’ flutter which says
> 
> we are for each other; then  
> laugh, leaning back in my arms  
> for life’s not a paragraph
> 
> And death i think is no parenthesis'
> 
> \- since feeling is first, E. E. Cummings

How it began, is perhaps not one would expect.

There was no seduction. No naivety. Dimitri had lain with another man before, and been instructed on the logistics of coupling with women.

It had been as simple as this. Council meetings were easier than they might have been without the presence of Dedue and Felix. Felix’s shrewdness meant things got done quickly. Dedue’s empathy and presence of mind meant that issues were not neglected or mishandled.

It was two years before Dimitri proposed an entirely new council be constructed for securing peaceful relations between the neighbors of Fodlan at the behest of King Khalid of Almyra, and trying to tread the path to any small reparation that could be made for years of war between Fodlan’s previous sovereign states and the world around them. It meant Dedue was in the capital exceedingly less. It meant collaboration between Petra, Claude— Khalid, and himself.

And yes, less importantly, it had meant that Sylvain was in the capital much more often than the title Margrave Gautier had previously entailed. In retrospect, Sylvain’s presence shouldn’t have been important at all, not with so many other things happening.

It also happened to be that Sylvain had grown more charismatic, well-spoken, smart… although, Dedue and Felix didn’t seem surprised by this development, so it remained to be seen whether there was any development at all. And despite the continued rumors of Sylvain’s romantic endeavors, many of his reports to the council held some amount of censure for the other philandering northern lords.

Sylvain’s words, his demeanor, his ability to project confidence; Everything about him was meant to charm. And then… well…

Dimitri spirals sometimes. This is no secret. As far as Dimitri knows, Dedue and Felix keep the others from seeing or realizing, otherwise they see the signs of it and make sure that it is handled as privately as possible. There is isolation in these moments. Partially to uphold Dimitri’s image as king. Partially because Felix can still barely stand the sight of Dimitri so heavily wounded, and still has a hard time reconciling the soundless voices which Dimitri could hear. Dedue, simply because the episodes lingered as an added reminder of his own pain, the faces he longed to see which were ripped away from him.

So, it happened that Sylvain had asked for an audience with Dimitri during one of these days. And it happened that after some small amount of deliberation, it was decided that he should be allowed to see Dimitri after all. That is not where their relationship began, but it is where Sylvain started to occupy Dimitri’s mind. He was no longer annoyed-by or immune-to Sylvain’s prodding jokes, or the easiness of his posture, or the brilliance he felt having Sylvain’s undivided attention. Personal and personable. And maybe in guilt he could admit, he liked that part of Sylvain that was so intent on taking care of him. The idea never existed in perpetuity, but the weight of his desire, for Sylvain brushing this bangs aside and smoothing palms over his arms, crunched in his stomach like gravel underfoot. Sickening, guilty, and unfading.

He had thought Sylvain had kissed him first, together sitting on the balcony outside his room. They had been talking over their own lives, instead of reviewing notes for the next days council. It was Sylvain just how Dimitri liked him; Talking about their friends and, for the first time Dimitri could remember, talking of the future. In that future, Dimitri could feel the sickening cold of his fixation with the other, watch it melt, watch it become hot and brilliant as the sun.

His memory tells two versions of the outcome. In the first, Sylvain glances over, fixated on Dimitri’s smile and kisses him. In the second he grabs Sylvain by the arm and pulls him forward too tightly. Who was to blame? Was it a mutual coming together? Surely it must have been, but who can judge upon the definite and indefinite.

The second day of Sylvain’s stays in Fhirdiad usually happens like this.  
  
Sylvain was gone when Dimitri woke in the morning, back to the crypt of his room, or else organizing, reviewing, and rehearsing his talking points for when the council opens later in the afternoon. If yesterday had gone better, Sylvain would be sitting at the edge of his bed talking and rehearsing. If it had gone worse, Sylvain would be in his lap right now, working them both to chafing. On worse days, Sylvain will silently leave once he thinks Dimitri won’t notice. On better days, Sylvain will walk as close he can manage to Dimitri without causing suspicion.

There’s a melange of thoughts Dimitri forces himself to leave unsorted, though they nag at the back of his head and settle into the background of his ever-present migraine. Sylvain’s relative importance among the days proceedings is artificially inflated to fit the shape of Dimitri’s own desires. For now, there are other things to sort through.

There’s a laundry list of tasks that need to be done, people who need to be greeted, and Dimitri only feels too lucky that all of his personal retinue are in Castle Fhirdiad to council, for once. It’s long, tiring. And Dimitri is mostly past thoughts of his lover when he sees him again.

Today, he meets Dimitri in the corridor running towards the council room, and there’s no soft touches and no kisses, but he’s talking and that’s enough. For once, Dimitri is glad he smells those funerary flowers instead of evidence of something more lively. That deathly aroma is only a reminder, today, that Sylvain is still his.

Romance occupies the same space in Dimitri’s mind as most other Romantic concepts; Justice, love forgiveness. They all sit just this side of reality, somehow perfect and pristine. Each thought has its own place, organized by rights and wrongs, but not unsullied by their harsher truths.

“I’m afraid I lost my self far too entirely last night. I hope you’ll forgive me.” It may be cowardice, an inverse to Dimitri’s bravery last night, that pushes him to speak now. The intermediary of social and political obligation binds Sylvain stronger than he lets show, and so there will be no refutations or argumentative spins to come from mentioning it now. He makes himself an oath that the ducking and covering won’t become a precedent.

“Oh, it was nothing.” If it bothers Sylvain, he doesn’t show it. But when Dimitri’s hand comes and lands warmly on Sylvain’s arm, he flinches almost imperceptibly.

“I would, that I could make it up to you.” It feels at times as though shame is something that lives in Dimitri’s blood, and it makes itself known underneath the skin of Dimitri’s cheeks. “It was hardly a warm welcome.”

“I was hardly a gracious guest, your Majesty.” 

“We need to talk.”  
  
“We will talk,” There’s something between the cautious exuberance that Dimitri is only now learning to read. _You hate me,_ is the unspoken sentence when Sylvain says, too calmly. “We’ll talk. We’ll take it slow, okay?”

Dimitri has seen his friends in all states of death, both real and imagined. Nothing could have prepared him for the placid tone Sylvain spoke with when a demonic beast had very nearly torn his arm from his shoulder. It was something like Priest’s Calm, the professor had explained once. The shock of the injury removed the physical and emotional effects, so that someone could still call on the goddesses power to heal.

It’s the grotesque realization that Sylvain is using the same tone now that spurs Dimitri onward.

“I’m afraid I’ve misstepped,” he says, “I’ve hurt you and I— I’m sorry. Truly sorry. What I’m saying… What I’m trying to say is…”

“Dimitri,” Sylvain’s voice is still the cautious and overly calm. When he meets Sylvain’s eyes, faced back to look at him, Dimitri begins to see the shape of what he’s missing. “I could have run away by now, if I wanted to. Will you trust me if I say I won’t?”

Dimitri nods, and Sylvain smiles, smooth faced and diplomatic.  
  
Loyal to a fault.  
  
“We’ll talk.” Dimitri agrees. “Both of us.”  
  
Sylvain falters for a moment, recognizing the agreement is binding him into honesty.  
  
“Yeah, okay. Both of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, phew. I had to do a shit ton of editing and saving on this to make sure my chapter notes won't be messed up in the future. This is a direct continuation of the last chapter. From here on out, these will probably all be drabbles and vignettes.
> 
> I'm not sure how I feel about this in comparison to the last chapter since, note, I don't... write happy stuff very well. I think the next section I'm going to write is going to be a shifted PoV from my AsheDue wedding fic... or, it's going to be something steamy... or, knowing me it's going to be sad again. But we have options.
> 
> As always you can find me @chinupking on twitter. I am always looking for people to talk to, especially since I'm getting back on an FE kick again.


	3. Reverie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Alcohol, reference to past sexual coercion
> 
> "I feel fine, I feel good  
> I feel like I never should  
> Whenever I get this way  
> I just don't know what to say  
> Why can't we be ourselves  
> Like we were yesterday"
> 
> \- Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this on Monday, but I have the brain of a 65 year old and got distracted by crosswords. 
> 
> I don't have anyone betaing for me rn, so I'm just warning you, as of the original posting time, I haven't gone in and edited or done more than cursory correcting and editing. I will go in and finish making corrections within the next 24 hours.

Dimitri was unsure of how to set up their second “encounter”.  
  
He was unsure, really, of whether or not he should have been more forward in his intention that the affair continue. The morning after the first had been sweet. Uncertain. But Sylvain had stayed, and when he returned north on the morrow his letters were no more affectionate than they had ever been. If any tension lingered in Sylvain, reclining on Dimitri’s bed as though he belonged there, precariously balancing his glass of wine on the bed sheet, well… sufficed to say it wasn’t apparent. 

So, it was to be a balancing act. 

Sylvain hadn’t commented on much since his arrival in Fhirdiad, being the last of the delegates to arrive. Dimitri hadn’t had much opportunity to speak with him privately either. The past two nights they had both been inundated by meetings, and Sylvain, not preferring the company of the minor northern lords, seemed to retire early when he could. He rose early, bickered with Felix, did the meetings, and indeed by the time Dimitri could send anyone to him, his sitting room had been dimmed and his bedroom locked. 

If Sylvain had commented, he would have noted that Dimitri had the books haphazardly stuffed into their cabinets replaced with volumes that suited an adult better than a 12 year old boy. Or that Dimitri had added another fire screen to keep the room from getting too hot. Or that the bed posts had been recurtained with thicker material, so the late-summer sun would provide no issue in the morning.  
  
It was maddening really. He worried not that Sylvain wouldn’t notice his efforts, but that he might. That it might seem overbearing. That Dimitri was obviously pre-occupied by something, because he had missed the passage that Sylvain had been reading out of the book propped against his knees, and Dimitri was staring mutely at how Sylvain’s cheek waxed and waned in the firelight all the while.  
  
For now, Sylvain’s brows were beginning to furrow slightly between consternation and disappointment. The wine opened his face up so nicely, Dimitri nearly stuttered as he reinitiated the conversation, “Forgive me, I was thinking of something. I hadn’t realized you were reading to me.”  
  
Sylvain’s hum dances through the haze of his own glass. “Difficult to focus with the weight of the continent on your shoulders, huh?”

“Something like that,” Dimitri smiles obligingly. “I’m listening now if you want to continue.”  
  
“Come on, Dimi. I’ve already laughed at the passage and read it in the mocking voice. It’s like repeating a joke. It won’t be as funny.”

“Hm, perhaps you could summarize and move on?”  
  
“Well, the Lady Lorelei has just been promised to the King’s son, but the mercenary from the 5th chapter has come to seduce her.” 

“And I’m supposing it worked.”

“And you missed it,” Sylvain throws his arms out dramatically, before flailing to catch his wobbling glass of wine, and Dimitri is so well-humored from the rim of his own glass that he barely notices he’s stepped forward.

Wine is not especially effective on Dimitri. Nor is any alcohol, really. But they’re a bottle of wine deep. There’s just enough dizziness to have the laughter pouring freely from his throat. It’s not long before he finds himself imposing into Sylvain’s space, until they’re connected from hip to knee. Until Sylvain has to duck and shimmy out of the way to make enough rooms for Dimitri’s shoulder. 

It’s enough to lean forward and knock his teeth against Sylvain’s. He’s barely embarrassed, though.  
  
“I’d prefer you not wet my bed. We’ve grown far past that.”

Sylvain snorts, something unattractive from the back of his throat, but very real in its pleasure, “I’m not the one that had that problem.”

The familiarity of the moment had somehow tempered everything. It was so easy to lean in and kiss, to forget to be unhappy or worried. To touch and try to remember what he managed to accomplish the last time.

The first time had been a blur. Dimitri had felt inebriated in the return of his affection. He hadn’t been able to imagine at first, overwhelmed. Perhaps, the first time had been too much for him, and perhaps he had cried after Sylvain fell asleep in his arms, holding him as though he knew. 

It’s easy this time. Sylvains shirt fallows down to the narrow part of his waist. Sylvain’s hands are deep in his hair and at the ties of his pants. 

“You’re gorgeous.” The intimacy is warming, with no thoughts in the way. “Darling.”

Sylvain gasps a moment, brings a hand to Dimitri’s chest to push gently. Dimitri complies, falls back with a heavy breath. There’s a moment of emptiness and Sylvain is pulling open his shirt, saying “Help me with this.”

“Beautiful,” Dimitri responds as he complies. Because it’s true. Sylvain is straddling his hips. They’re still clothed from the waist down, but he still feels giddiness. The strain of laughter and joy lends itself to heaviness, but Dimitri feels freed of it. Sylvain is red from cheek to chest, his hair tossed, and his chin slightly wet with spit. “Wonderful. Gorgeous.”  
  
“You said that already,” Sylvain says. And it’s... too hasty. It breaks Dimitri back out of his drunken reverie like a handful of snow to the face.

“Have I done something wrong.”  
  
Sylvain’s hands fall away from Dimitri’s shoulders, and he looks towards the wall for a second. He looks confused almost. Not unhappy. Still breathless and a little bit dazed.

It takes a moment, but he leans back into him. Something more like a hug than the insistent groping fro, before. “You don’t have to lay on the praise so thick.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”  
  
“It just feels so…”

There’s a pause, which might lend itself into a non explanation. Sylvain doesn’t move, barely breathes. With a hesitant hand Dimitri rubs his hand down his flank, and wraps an arm around when he feels Sylvain relax again.  
  
“The talk is very sweet, Dimitri,” Sylvain let’s the words be coaxed out at him.  
  
“But it makes you uncomfortable.”  
  
“Yes. No one’s ever talked to me like that unless they wanted something. And, well, I guess that’s the point of foreplay, still though,” he laughs and it’s too pretty and restrained. His hand travels hot and persistent up the seam of Dimitri’s thigh. “You know what never mind. I’m probably being melodramatic. Wanna try again?”

Dimitri grabs Sylvain’s wrist, tightening his hold cautiously around Sylvain’s waist. It’s another moment before Sylvain is melting against him again, lulled back into security and inaction. He wishes he knew exactly what to do or how, is relieved that what he’s doing seems to be working.

“I don’t think I can understand fully. In fact, I’m certain I’d very much enjoy hearing similar words fall from your mouth.” He brings Sylvain’s hand to his cheek, presses in against it, hoping he’ll understand that Dimitri’s not rebuking his affection. “I never expected… these sorts of things to come easily to me. I would like to learn to love you in a way you can understand, if you would guide me.”

“I think I was trying to guide you, before you interrupted.”

“Please. I’m trying not to scold you like a child.”  
  
“Now there’s an idea. I’m not saying no.”  
  
“Sylvain, truly.”

“It’s going to sound weird. Or maybe unfair,” he huffs.  
  
Dimitri says nothing, just nosing into the curly hair at the crown of Sylvain’s head.  
  
“We’ve known each other almost our entire lives, but we’ve never been close. I was just hoping the things you said would feel more real. You know less generic.” The words tumble out, “Don’t get me wrong I love a good cliché, but I was hoping I’d be more than just…” and then stop.

“I’ve left you room for doubt.”

“I’ll flatter myself, but not too much.”

“Please, explain.”

“I know what I look like, and I know my reputation.”

“Well that’s distinctly uncharitable to both of us,” it’s Dimitri’s turn to huff now, dropping Sylvain’s hand. “Would it surprise you if I said this was not my first romance? Nor my first sexual foray.”

Sylvain is silent, still leaned in and hiding his face. Meanwhile Dimitri tries to organize his thoughts, swirling once more, into something that can be understood.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t enjoy your... many gifts. I think I’ve been needlessly hesitant in expressing myself, however. And it’s been no help to either of us. It’s strange. I feel lovesick. When you’re away I just want your good humor back.” The silence persists longer than he thinks he can stand. “By the goddess won’t you please say something.”

Sylvain’s face is back in view, flushed and tired. “You’ve been kissing your lovers like that, your Majesty? I’m glad I could step in and give assistance”

“Sylvain,” Dimitri admonishes, before his brain pieces together on “Lovers?”

“It’s a lot for me to answer to right away, but if I want to be here in the morning, and the day after, and the day after, and every day I’m gone” Sylvain seems to come to some conclusion, sets in more determined. “If that were true I’d have to ride to Fhirdiad every month and ask for your hand, and maybe embarrass us both in the process.”

“Your mind is set on marriage so quickly,” Dimitri half laughs, finding the joy from earlier easy enough to regain. “That’s quite the commitment.”

“Distinctly uncharitable.”

“I apologize,” he responds, half meaning it. 

“I’ll let you make it up to me,” and Sylvain’s hands are guiding Dimitri’s once more, “tell me one thing you’re afraid to say.”

“I spent almost a week trying to replace the books in my room with things you’d like,” Dimitri admits, spurred when Sylvain looks at him like he’d carved Fodlans throat with his own hands. “I had thought, hoped, we would spend more time together.”

“I’d been avoiding you in case you changed your mind. I would have done something to embarrass both of us.”

“All I’ve wanted is to spend time with you,” Dimitri admits, knowing it to be a childish wish. 

If Sylvain thinks it’s childish, he doesn’t say. He’s settling into something dream like, and Dimitri is longing to follow him there.

“You still can.”

It’s an extended invitation, an opening Dimitri’s been waiting for. Dimitri settles in against Sylvain’s lips once more, and accepts.

And accepts.

And accepts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a fic with no death and healthy communication and also more than 10 lines of dialogue. This is as much as I can do. 
> 
> This was, like many of my fics, partially based off a convo with my friend Miles, so, even though he doesn't read much of my work I just wanted to give him some credit on the topic and theme for this chapter.
> 
> As always, if you ever want to talk you can shoot me a message @ChinUpKing on twitter.


End file.
